Jay Pov.
I was frozen in place when I saw the bullets hit Sato. I mean sure, I've used again before. County Times. But I only ever use it for defence. Or to disarm maybe. Like I shoot in their shoulders or arms or legs...
But to kill? No. That was against my policy. I have never done an encounter in my life. All of them? They go to prison, but they stay alive. But this? This was murder.
But above all that, what made my heart stop was what happens before that. Sato shot Kiefer. I felt like I saw it happenings in slow motion. My legs felt like lead, frozen in its place. Still, I forced myself to move. But it was too late, too far, too much, too everything.
There were a thousand voices screaming a thousand things at once in my head. That this was all my fault somehow. Then it happened. I saw the blood, and then... I saw Aries with a terrified expression on his face.
Flash.
The scene changed. Suddenly, I heard a different new voice... And I was staring at Aries with a pale face.. a younger version of him.
"When is your mother going to come? I guess she does care about you anyway." His face was distorted, somehow. Like her brain was protecting her heart with what little it had left.
"No.. she will come." This voice... She recognised it. This was Aries. A younger him.
"Keep dreaming kid. Can't really blame her. This one is a useless piece of shit anyway." He said, nodding his head at me.
Then suddenly, a new voice joined. My Father's. Papa Jaspher. No. Not now Jay, anak. Focus. What have I always taught you? They need you now. We don't discard family. Push it away. You got this.
I got this. I repeated in my head. They need me. I used every inch of my willpower, my brain hurt from the strain of it, but I pushed. I built a mental wall around my brain. I forced the darkness back.
I screwed my eyes shut and blocked out all those memories, and when I opened them again, I was back at the present. My head was pounding, and I felt like collapsing. It took every I had in me to force myself to walk toward Kwanan. To force my mind to focus on my present.
The minute I saw him, my heart lost control. No no no no. The blood loss. He got shot. The sheer terror of seeing him like that made my heart freeze up. But then my brain took control.
Usually, that would be really bad news since my brain is as absurd as I am. But it does prove to be useful. Occasionally. When it doesn't overthink diabolically.
The months of CBI training kick started my brain, racing a hundred miles an hour. I forced myself to think.
What was I taught? Come on, think. Then my former training instructor's voice echoed in my head.
"Asses. React. Look at the problem. Don't panic, that won't do any good. You have to analyse everything that could go wrong, find a way to prevent it."
Right. Ok. Asses. Analysis. I could do that. I was trained to do that. Just then I heard Kwanan saying something.
"It's fine. I can just walk to the car and we can get to a nearby hospital." He said. I was absolutely furious now.
"Sure. And then we can drive straight to your funeral." I said sarcastically. Sarcasm was my in built defence mechanism. My shield. My way of coping with terror.
He frowned. "What do you mean?" Percy, however asked a different question.
"How much time do we have to save him?"
That helped me think. "Depends. If it hit the Subclavian or Axillary artery, then only 2 to 5 minutes. If it hit the Subclavian or Axillary vein, then 5 to 15 minutes. Open your shirt, I want to see where exactly the bullet hit you."
That idiot, despite looking initially shocked about my medical knowledge, smirked. "Are you asking me to remove my shirt, Jay?" I glared at him. Yuri slapped his own forehead. Aries looked like he wanted to commit murder.
"This is not the time for your nonsense! Percy, remove his shirt." I said, my patience hanging by a thread. I approached him and the wound wasn't too deep.
"Flashlight." I said to no one in particular. Yuri immediate took out his phone and aimed the flashlight at the wound. I caught a glint of the bullet.
"Hmm.. not too deep. I can still see the bullet." I muttered, mostly to myself.
Kwanan frowned. "Right. So I can walk to the car."
I shook my head. "Blood loos still heavy. If you exhaust yourself, you'll die immediately. First, shut up for a few seconds and let me asses."
He stayed silent. I was shocked he was being obedient, and then saw his breath becoming shallow. He was losing too much energy.
"Oh no. That's not good." I said, tensing up.
"What? What's wrong?" Aries asked.
"The bullet is in the lower shoulder. There's a possibility that it hit the top of his lung, seeing that he has trouble breathing properly." I said.
Just then section E entered with the girls. Apparently they came in to check what was taking so long. They saw me next to Kwanan and were about to start teasing- until they saw the blood on his shoulder. There were several gasps and cries. I shushed them. A few asked what's wrong and I told them about his trouble breathing.
"I don't have trouble breathing properly!" Kwanan said, and then coughed violently. I chose to ignore his protests. Apparently, so did Aries because he then asked:
"Possibility? What's the probability?"
"Uhmm.. highly likely. Looks like it hit the apex of his lung, which could cause pneumothorax or hemothorax so-"
"Speaking in english, miss Wikipedia. We get it, you're a genius. But translate it for the rest of us normals." Percy cut in.
I blinked. In my terrified state of mind, I had completely forgotten that I was talk to them and not my trainer. "Err.. right, sorry. So, pneumothorax is lung collapse and Hemothorax is blood in the chest cavity. Either could cause suffocation or fatal pressure on the heart within 20 minutes to 2 hours." I said, the explanation reciting of the top of my head, with what I remembered from all those emergency medical procedures books they forced us to read in CBI training.
"How do you even know this much?" Ci n asked.
"Because I am a genius." I replied proudly.
Percy rolled his eyes. "Because she's weird and reads medical books when she's bored." Percy corrected. I scowled.
Ci n blinking. "... That's concerning."
"Ok, no more talking from any of you. I need to think. Limited time, remember?" I said. They all went completely silent. And didn't utter a word after that.
"If we have 2 hours, then we can just drive to a hospital." Kwanan said.
I shook my head. "I give it 30 minutes, tops, before you collapse due to blood loss. Then it'll be to hard to operate on your lungs."
"We could still reach the hospital in 30 minutes." Yuri said.
"Where do you think we are Yuri? In a local mall? Think Yuri, Think. We're in an abandoned factory with no population within atleast 80 km radius. It'll take 40 minutes min to get to the nearest clinic, not to mention a full scale hospital." I said, my brain running thousand miles an hour. They all turned to look at me.
"Then what do we do?" Yuri asked. I forced my brain to slow down.
One step at a time, Mariano. Think.
I have done the analysis. And what do I know now? I know that I have to control the breathing since his lungs are injured. Okay, what's the next step?
React. Right. What did I have to do now to ? Try to make a makeshift stitches to help clotting of blood. No. That wasn't what I needed to do. Breathing. If his lungs are injured, then breathing is the problem.
"Ok," I said out aloud because nothing was making sense inside my head. My thoughts were tripping over each other and my mind was ten steps ahead. So I had to say it aloud to make sense of it. "I can't take the bullet out since it might be acting as a temporary plug for a torn blood vessel. If I take it out, the lung may tear even more and get filled with blood. So what do I do?"
Then, a memory of a page from a medical book that I had read sometime because I was bored popped in to my head. Looks like my stupid obsession with reading isn't so useless after all. Unlike me... I feel pretty useless. Well, atleast I feel pretty while feeling useless hehe. Wait, no, Jay- focus.
"Okay, so a punctured lung acts like a one way valve." I said.
"What does that mean exactly?" David asked.
"Well, it means it lets air in when you inhale, but blocks it when you try to exhale." I explained.
"Oh.. so that's why breathtaking is an issue." Rory said.
"But how can you make that better?" Rakki asked.
"Yes, I'm getting to that. I need to make a 3 sided occlusive dressing... Like a flutter valve." I looked around until I spotted Edrix holding a handkerchief. He gave it to me. "Right, so I could tie this in such a way that 3 corners are attached so that when you inhale, due to the suction the kerchief blocks the outside air and it will move a little away when you exhale, letting the air out. Ok?" I asked Kwanan. He just nodded, trusting me, unable to speak.
Then another thought struck me. "Air tight. The kerchief has pores, it will still let outside air in causing infection. Uhmm... Does anyone have Vaseline or-"
"I do have Vaseline, as a matter of fact. I always have it." Honey said.
I took it and spread it on the cloth to make it air tight. Then I took a small splinter pressed it on his shoulders and tied 3 sides of the kercheif around the wound.
"Okay, I've slowed down the immediate threat, but we should still go to the hospital as soon as possible. Let me drive." I said.
Nobody questioned it. Finally we reached the hospital. He was rushed into the emergency room, to perform the surgery. The doctor came out after about an hour.
"Who did the occlusive dressing?" Was his first question. My face paled. Did I do something wrong? Did I mess up?
"Uhmm.. I did. Why?" I said.
He looked completely taken aback. "You? Seriously? Are you studying to be a doctor?"
"Err.. no? Why?"
"It was perfectly done. If you hadn't done what you did at the right time, saving him would have been almost impossible. He's more than just stable now. The operation was successful. He'll be completely okay in about a week of bed rest."
Relief flooded over me. The only other time I ever felt this relieved was when I found out Percy hadn't stolen my hidden stash of snacks and chocolates.
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Dear readers,
This note is to convey my deepest apologies to anyone who found this chapter boring (be honest, you did skip a little didn't you?)
I don't blame y'all. You're probably like 'oh come on! I just got over with science at school not again!'😭✌️
And I get it! I really do. I'm sorry gng. But I just had to show the conflict in Jays head and her ability to stay calm in these kind of situation and how smart she really is...
To make it up for y'all, next chap is going to be Jay's literall fire side. Like y'all are NOT ready for this.
Anyways, byeee.
Sorry once again.😝🫣